Is Biden Quiet Quitting?

Summary

Pod Save America: "Is Biden Quiet Quitting?" – Detailed Summary

Release Date: December 17, 2024

Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor
Production: Crooked Media
Podcast Description: Pod Save America offers a no-nonsense conversation about politics, breaking down weekly news, and providing listeners with insights and actionable advice. Hosted by former Obama aides, the show frequently features journalists, activists, politicians, entertainers, and world leaders.

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1. The Trump-ABC Defamation Lawsuit Settlement

Timestamp: [03:44 - 12:26]

In the opening segments, the hosts delve into Donald Trump's recent defamation lawsuit against ABC News. The discussion is sparked by the news that ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to Trump's post-presidency foundation and an additional $1 million in legal fees to settle the defamation claim. This lawsuit arose from a misstatement by George Stephanopoulos, who erroneously reported that Trump had been found liable for rape in the E. Jean Carroll case, whereas the legal finding was for sexual abuse.

Notable Quotes:

• Donald Trump (via transcript): "I think you have to do it because they're very dishonest."
• Jon Favreau: "What makes this settlement surprising is ABC’s parent company, Disney, known for its robust legal strategies, choosing to capitulate."

Key Points:

• The hosts express surprise and disappointment over ABC’s decision to settle, highlighting Disney's reputation for fierce legal defenses.
• Discussing the "chilling effect," Tommy Vietor emphasizes how such lawsuits can deter media outlets from reporting accurately, fearing costly litigation. "They're raising the cost of doing journalism. They're making it more dangerous."
• Jon Lovett points out the potential misuse of defamation laws against public figures, questioning the balance between protecting reputations and ensuring free press.

2. Implications for Media and Free Speech

Timestamp: [12:26 - 32:54]

The conversation shifts to the broader implications of Trump's legal actions against media organizations. The hosts argue that high-profile lawsuits can set dangerous precedents, potentially silencing critical journalism and fostering a climate of fear among reporters.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Vietor: "This signals a chilling momentum behind all these cases, making investigation more costly and risky."
• Jon Favreau: "It's a difficult situation where even accurate statements can be misconstrued, leading to unnecessary legal battles."

Key Points:

• The hosts discuss other instances where Trump and his allies have threatened or initiated lawsuits against journalists and media outlets, such as The New Yorker and individuals like Ann Seltzer.
• Emphasis on the contradiction within media organizations like ABC settling the lawsuit, which traditionally would stand firm, raising concerns about corporate influence over journalistic integrity.
• The segment underscores the erosion of trust between the media and political figures, highlighting the potential long-term damage to democratic discourse.

3. Joe Biden’s "Quiet Quitting" Presidency

Timestamp: [02:21 - 43:26]

The term “quiet quitting” is used to describe President Joe Biden’s perceived withdrawal from the public eye in the final weeks of his presidency. The hosts explore possible reasons behind Biden’s low profile, contrasting it with his predecessors' more visible exit strategies.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Vietor: "Quiet quitting seems like what he's doing, stepping back without the fanfare."
• Jon Lovett: "Does it say something about his leadership style or perhaps strategic planning for the transition?"

Key Points:

• Observations that Biden has largely avoided public gatherings and significant announcements, unlike Trump, who remains active in political arenas.
• The White House memo suggests upcoming actions, such as pardons and student debt forgiveness, but lacks detailed public communication.
• Discussion on the potential “quiet quitting” reflecting Biden’s strategy to preserve his legacy or a recognition that his influence is waning as his term concludes.

4. The Mysterious Drone Sightings Across the U.S.

Timestamp: [43:05 - 50:35]

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to unexplained drone sightings in states like New Jersey. The hosts analyze the government's response and the ensuing public anxiety.

Notable Quotes:

• Jon Lovett: "People are losing their minds, fearing drones might be something sinister, while most are just hobbyists or misidentified objects."
• Tommy Vietor: "The misinformation and wild theories on social media only amplify fears, with calls to shoot down every unidentified drone."

Key Points:

• Reports indicate various types of drones, some manned and others not, causing confusion and fear among the populace.
• Discussed responses from politicians, including aggressive statements from Republicans like Rep. Chris Smith, advocating for militarized responses.
• Jon Favreau criticizes the proposed solutions, emphasizing the dangers of civilians being empowered to shoot down drones, potentially leading to fatal accidents.
• The segment highlights the role of misinformation and the lack of clear communication from federal authorities in exacerbating public concerns.

5. Trump’s Proposal to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent

Timestamp: [50:35 - 54:36]

Donald Trump’s recent proposal to adopt permanent Daylight Saving Time (DST) is dissected by the hosts, weighing its practicality and potential benefits and drawbacks.

Notable Quotes:

• Jon Favreau: "Making DST permanent could streamline timekeeping, but it also presents regional challenges based on geographical locations."
• Tommy Vietor: "Especially in states like Michigan, where permanent DST could mean significantly later sunrises, impacting daily routines."

Key Points:

• Explanation of the Sunshine Protection Act, which aims to eliminate the biannual clock changes, supported by figures like Marco Rubio and Vivek Ramaswamy.
• Discussion on the regional disparities in daylight hours and how permanent DST might favor southern states over northern ones.
• Introduction of potential technological solutions, such as satellite-mounted reflectors, to simulate daylight, though humorously critiqued by the hosts.
• Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau propose a compromise allowing states to choose between permanent DST, permanent Standard Time, or continuing current practices, advocating for flexibility based on regional needs.

6. Kamala Harris’s Political Future and Democratic Strategies

Timestamp: [55:46 - 84:38]

A substantial segment features a conversation with Democratic figures, focusing on Kamala Harris’s potential runs for governor of California or the presidency. The discussion also touches on Democratic strategies to combat Republican initiatives and rebuild trust with voters.

Notable Quotes:

• Kamala Harris: "A whole of society approach is essential to tackle economic inequality and deindustrialization."
• Jon Lovett: "Instead of mirroring Republican tactics, Democrats aim to restore faith in collective action and government efficacy."

Key Points:

• Kamala Harris discusses her principles of substantive policy-making and humility, emphasizing collaboration across diverse sectors to address economic challenges.
• The hosts and Harris explore the difficulties Democrats face in swing states like Ohio, Texas, and North Carolina, where economic woes and political dissatisfaction prevail.
• Strategies proposed include focusing on economic revitalization, cutting wasteful defense spending, and engaging deeply with local communities to build trust and support.
• Harris underscores the importance of maintaining progressive values while pragmatically addressing logistical and legislative hurdles, such as opposing the Congressional Impoundment Act repeal, which would grant the executive branch more unilateral control over appropriated funds.

7. The Role of Entrepreneurship and Government in Economic Growth

Timestamp: [79:18 - 84:33]

The episode examines the interplay between entrepreneurial endeavors and government initiatives in fostering economic growth. The conversation critiques the notion that entrepreneurship alone can drive prosperity, advocating instead for a balanced approach involving government support.

Notable Quotes:

• Kamala Harris: "Entrepreneurs thrive with the support of strong, effective government policies that create a conducive environment for innovation."
• Jon Favreau: "Elon Musk’s successes were significantly bolstered by government loans and contracts, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between private enterprise and public support."

Key Points:

• Harris emphasizes that significant economic advancements often result from collaborations between government programs and private sector innovations, dispelling the myth of entrepreneurship as a solitary endeavor.
• Discussion on how figures like Elon Musk have benefited from government support, such as loans during the Obama administration, challenging the narrative that portrays entrepreneurs as entirely self-made.
• The hosts advocate for policies that enhance capital formation, streamline procurement processes, and invest in workforce development to sustain economic growth and competitiveness.

8. Addressing Congressional Impoundment and Executive Overreach

Timestamp: [64:22 - 67:12]

The hosts and Harris address concerns over proposed legislative changes like the repeal of the Congressional Impoundment Act, which would allow the executive branch more discretion over allocated funds.

Notable Quotes:

• Kamala Harris: "Repealing the Impoundment Act could lead to severe repercussions for essential services, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities."
• Jon Lovett: "This shift threatens the balance of power and undermines Congress’s role in funding critical programs."

Key Points:

• Harris articulates the dangers of repealing checks on executive spending, highlighting potential impacts on education, healthcare, and social services.
• The discussion underscores the necessity of maintaining legislative control over appropriations to prevent unilateral executive actions that could harm public welfare.
• Emphasis on the importance of public mobilization and advocacy to safeguard democratic institutions and prevent erosion of checks and balances.

9. Final Thoughts on Democratic Vision and Future Outlook

Timestamp: [78:01 - End]

Concluding the episode, Kamala Harris shares her vision for the Democratic Party, focusing on building a cohesive and inclusive strategy that addresses economic disparities while fostering collaboration across various societal sectors.

Notable Quotes:

• Kamala Harris: "Our party must champion a better civilization, grounded in mutual respect and collective progress, without resorting to divisive tactics."
• Jon Lovett: "Democrats aim to restore faith in government by demonstrating effective, compassionate leadership that truly serves all Americans."

Key Points:

• Harris advocates for a Democratic approach that emphasizes constructive dialogue, policy-driven solutions, and bipartisan collaboration to address complex societal issues.
• The hosts highlight the challenges ahead for Democrats in securing Senate majorities and winning key swing states, stressing the importance of grassroots engagement and tailored economic policies.
• The episode wraps up with a call to action for listeners to stay informed, participate in the democratic process, and support policies that promote economic justice and institutional integrity.

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Conclusion

In "Is Biden Quiet Quitting?", Pod Save America navigates a spectrum of pressing political issues, from Trump's legal battles against media to Biden's strategic withdrawal from the public spotlight. The episode underscores the intricate balance between governmental power, media integrity, and democratic resilience. Through incisive commentary and insightful discussions, the hosts provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the current political landscape and the challenges facing American democracy.

Notable Quotes Compilation:

• Donald Trump: "I think you have to do it because they're very dishonest." ([03:44])
• Tommy Vietor: "This signals a chilling momentum behind all these cases, making investigation more costly and risky." ([12:26])
• Kamala Harris: "Our party must champion a better civilization, grounded in mutual respect and collective progress." ([78:01])

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For a deeper dive into these discussions and more, tune into Pod Save America on your preferred podcast platform every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

Choose fun.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

I'm John Levitt.

[Tommy Vitor]

I'm Tommy Vitor.

[Jon Lovett]

On today's show, Joe Biden yields the spotlight to Donald Trump in the final weeks of his presidency. We'll dig into the strange dynamic and talk about what Biden has and hasn't been doing. We'll also talk about the great drone mystery that's taken the nation by storm and Trump's promise to make daylight saving time permanent, which might not be such a crazy idea, according to noted circadian rhythm expert John Lovett.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right.

[Jon Lovett]

Then Congressman Ro Khanna stops by to talk about collaborating with Elon Musk and Trump and how Democrats in the upcoming Congress should strike the balance between resisting and getting things done. But first, Donald Trump unexpectedly took questions from reporters Monday morning at Mar A Lago, as he usually does at these things. He talked about all kinds of shit without making too much news. But one thing that got a lot of attention, including ours, was his response to a question about lawsuits against media figures. We found out over the weekend that ABC News will contribute $15 million to Trump's post Presidency foundation and pay another million in legal fees to settle a defamation lawsuit the president elect brought against them. The lawsuit came after George Stephanopoulos mistakenly said on air that Trump had, quote, been found liable for rape in the Eugene Carroll case as opposed to mere sexual abuse and defamation. A reporter at the Monday presser asked Trump whether he's considering expanding his legal strategy to include other media outlets that he believes defamed him.

[Donald Trump]

I think you have to do it because they're very dishonest. I'm going to be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster who got me right all the time. And then just before the election, she said I was going to lose by three or four points. And it became the biggest story all over the world. That was the Des Moines Register and it was their parent. And in my opinion, it was fraud and it was election interference. And we'll probably be filing a major lawsuit against him today or tomorrow. We're filing one on 60 Minutes. You know about that. We're involved in one which has been going on for a while and very successfully against Bob Woodward where he didn't quote me properly from the tapes.

[Jon Lovett]

I just want to note that there's Nothing defamatory about 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris where Donald Trump was not part of his problem in the, in the interview, John.

[Jon Favreau]

There's nothing defamatory in any of the things that he describes.

[Jon Lovett]

Let's, let's Start with abc. Then what was your reaction to the news that they settled? And why do you guys think they did?

[Jon Favreau]

I was surprised by how mad and disappointed I was when I saw it. I couldn't believe it. I thought I must be missing something to see them. This is Disney we're talking about. Now, you might remember Disney famously tried to avoid facing consequences when someone died of an allergy at Disney World by claiming that in the Disney plus terms of service, they'd been indemnified.

[Jon Lovett]

I did not remember that.

[Jon Favreau]

Disney has lawyers. They are famous. They are famously brutal lawyers. And so to see them capitulate in this way. And by the way, if I got any of that wrong, Disney, I'm sorry, I'm just.

[Jon Lovett]

Do not revoke his fast pass.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, don't come after me. Don't come after me. But. But, like, Disney knows how to fight a frivolous or false law suit if it wants to. And it is choosing not to in this case. And that is very disappointing.

[Tommy Vitor]

And especially in a defamation suit against a public figure. Not just a public figure. Maybe the highest public figure when it comes to sort of like the political milieu. No, obviously, the highest. The President, United States, the incoming President Trump. You are supposed to have a lot more wiggle room when you're talking about that person. You have to prove there was actual malice in what you said. And George made a mistake. He said that Trump had been found liable for rape when it was actually sexual abuse. Do you offer context there?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, that is like, even that, I think, is being generous towards Trump interpretation of what Stephanopoulos said, because, yes, it is true technically that it was for sexual abuse and not rape. Even the judge in the case made a point of saying this is a narrow legal definition and by the common use of the word rape, it could apply in this case. And so there's an argument to be made that this isn't that. What, what Stephanopoulos said wasn't even incorrupt. His interpretation of the conclusion of the court is that it was liable for this, even if the technical legal wording might be different. So, like, it is all eminently defensible.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

And also with a public figure, this should not be a hard case. It signals. It's very chilling. It signals that there's some momentum behind all these cases. It signals that there is this. I don't know, there's this evidence, like we're seeing all these pieces of evidence that CEOs and corporations are preemptively bowing down to Trump. It's Mark Zuckerberg cutting a million dollar check to the inauguration. It's Tim Cook. How having dinner with Donald Trump.

[Jon Lovett]

Ted Sarandos is on his way there now, too, to Mar a Lago to meet with them.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, and look, I think this is probably gonna have a lot of news outlets worried, and this would be unthinkable outside of this context that a news outlet would settle for $15 million given the context. We just talked about how what Stephanopoulos said was completely defensible and how Trump is a public figure. It's very worrisome.

[Jon Lovett]

So I dug into this just to see if I was missing something, but about the case. So what happened is Trump said that the damages were too much money and he shouldn't know that much because he didn't rape her, is what he. That was his contention when he filed a second suit. Judge Kaplan said the finding that Ms. Carol failed to prove that she was raped within the meaning of the New York penal law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump raped her, as many people commonly understand the word rape. Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump, in fact, did exactly that. That then led to a Washington Post headline that said, judge clarifies. Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll. Then Stephanopoulos does the interview with Nancy Mace where he said, oh, he was found to have raped her. And May says, no. And they go back and forth and George says, oh, let's put up the Washington Post headline on the screen. So with all that in mind, the standard of actual malice is you need to, one, make a demonstrably false statement of fact, two, know that the statement was false or either know that it's false or had reckless disregard for its falsity, and three, damage his reputation. I got to tell you. Two and three.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, that's the thing, is it's like, A, it can be interpreted as being accurate, B, he wasn't intending and purposely misleading anybody.

[Jon Lovett]

Relying on the judge's words and the Washington Post.

[Jon Favreau]

And see, it's not even clear that there were any damages to Donald Trump. Right. Like all of this the lawyers at Disney are well aware of. Right.

[Tommy Vitor]

The question is, why? Was it because they did their own kind of internal digging and they found something in the discovery process in an email or in a document or somewhere that they thought, okay, we do not want this to go to a deposition and have George sit down and have this come out a court filing. Is it because ABC or Disney is thinking, let's just patch this up and fix our relationship with Trump now and not get iced out for the next few years. We don't know.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Like, one possibility is if there was something in all the documents where someone at ABC News, one of Georgia's producers was like, hey, by the way, you're not supposed to say rape. You know, like, I don't know if that's true at all. But I'm just saying, like, that's one possibility where because Trump was set to be deposed, Stephanopoulos was set to be deposed. They settled before. Also head of ABC News was at Mar a Lago also a week before meeting with Susie Wiles. They said it didn't have anything to do with the settlement.

[Jon Favreau]

But it's also like, and all of that, like, it's also there. It's a charitable donation. They're going to write some of it off. It would have cost them millions of dollars to defend the suit. Right. Like the delta between the Big 16, really? Because he's going to pay a million dollars for the legal fees. Right. The Delta between the 16 million they're going to spend versus the millions they'd spend if it went to court. Plus the cost of their reputation of fighting this in public, the damage. Right. Like, I'm sure they're thinking about all of that. But there was a time when news organizations understood that they had an obligation to the public and by the way, to their own journalists, that they know that if, even if they make a good faith mistake, which can happen, that they will have lawyers behind them defending them. Because people make mistakes, people say the wrong thing, people are allowed to get things wrong without the threat of a lawsuit. We have really good. That's a great thing about the First Amendment and the way we do defamation in this country. You have to prove malice.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And look, I think you could make an argument that it was the best business decision for Disney because it's chump change to them. But what happens when you are a journalist or media outlet that doesn't have ABC's resources, doesn't have the backing of Disney? Right. Also, you know, the New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel have threatened other journalists and pundits with defamation lawsuits, including the New Yorker, for their Pete Hegseth story that ended up going to print anyway. And, you know, for Patel, it was Olivia Troy, former Trump administration official, who was on tv, said something about him, that he was lying or something like that. And then, you know, and now you got Trump out there saying, I'm gonna, Just gonna, Just gonna sue Ann Seltzer for giving me a bad poll, which I don't. I mean, I don't. I don't think that's. I don't think that's gonna fly.

[Tommy Vitor]

Want to go for the Pulitzer Organization?

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Tommy Vitor]

What are we talking about?

[Jon Lovett]

The Pulitzer Organization for giving, for giving. The Post Pulitzers. Pulitzers for the. The Russia reporting. Russia investigation, suing everybody.

[Jon Favreau]

And like, look, do all of these come to. Did they actually pursue any of them? Does Trump's lawyers talk them out of some of these and not others? Whatever. But, like, the effect of that, like, the chilling effect of this is real. Like, they're raising the cost of investigating these people. They're raising the cost of doing journalism. And there are going to be places that just decide it's not worth it. They're going to be people that decide it's not worth it. Somebody like Olivia Troy. There's a lot of people that could speak out about what they saw inside the Trump administration that have it. They're making it more costly. They're making it more dangerous.

[Jon Lovett]

Even when I was, like, taking notes on this and thinking of, like, rereading what Judge Kaplan said, I was like, can I do this? Is this like, it's. The chilling effect is real? Because you start thinking, oh, shit, I don't want to get even. If you can win the defamation lawsuit, you don't want to spend however much money on lawyers to go to. To go to court.

[Jon Favreau]

And I mean, look, take just a pure fact. Donald Trump killed JonBenet Ramsey. That is not something you're going to be free to say in the public sphere anymore. Because you say it, and all of a sudden people are going to.

[Tommy Vitor]

Expensive bit, right?

[Jon Lovett]

Like, people are going to, like, I don't know him.

[Tommy Vitor]

Parody.

[Jon Lovett]

I was. He's just a guest on the show.

[Tommy Vitor]

Get his, get his emails. Just only.

[Jon Lovett]

Anyway, it is chilling. It is very chilling.

[Jon Favreau]

It is.

[Jon Lovett]

I wouldn't worry so much if I was Ann Seltzer, because I think that's fine. Shouldn't we be suing Ann Seltzer for giving us false hope?

[Tommy Vitor]

I would like to sue the New York Times Needle. I would like to see.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, watch out, Nate.

[Tommy Vitor]

Steve Kornacki's khakis. I love one of the Nates.

[Kamala Harris]

Who's that guy?

[Jon Favreau]

The, the guy with the, The. The. The keys. The jangling keys.

[Jon Lovett]

You better get the 14th key and get the. Out of here.

[Tommy Vitor]

I want to sue the American people.

[Jon Favreau]

Unlock the door to that plane.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, for the, for the outcome, yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, that's a good idea.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, for sure.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

I, I have some people that, I have some members of my tribe, the Gata tribe, I'd like to sue.

[Jon Lovett]

It's coming for you, Andy. Anyway, it's bad. It's bad, guys. So. The purpose of Trump's appearance at Mar A Lago Monday morning was to announce a $100 billion investment from SoftBank, the hugely influential Japanese bank in American AI projects. What an American story. It was more or less a standard presidential policy announcement. The main difference being Trump isn't president yet. A fact that's getting easier and easier to forget as Joe Biden seems to be disappearing from the public stage as his term comes to an end. Over the weekend, Trump took his new bro squad to watch the Army Navy game at the Commander stadium just outside D.C. an event that the President sometimes attends and Biden has attended himself in the past. No sign of him this year, though he did apparently appear at the DNC holiday party. The White House put out a memo on Sunday hinting that in the coming weeks, Biden will be announcing more pardons or commutations, doing more to protect federal land and trying to forgive more student debt. Reign and AI and award more chips act and IRA money.

[Jon Favreau]

Funny to be like, Liz Cheney is like, no, no, no. Yeah, protect the land. Gotta get, keep those trees safe.

[Jon Lovett]

No details on what we can expect or when. What do you guys think's going on here? Has Joe Biden stepped out of the spotlight or has the spotlight just moved away from Joe Biden? And what do you think it says that they had to put out that memo at all?

[Tommy Vitor]

Let's step right in. So the softbank thing is funny. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that SoftBank only has $30 billion on hand, so it's not clear how they're going to invest 100 billion. I guess they're going to go to the Saudis hat in hand again and try to raise another round. That's not going to be easy because the, the SoftBank Vision Fund too, included we work and a bunch of other companies that basically went bust.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, the, I watched the, the SoftBank CEO speak and it is this sort of funhouse mirror version of a presidential announcement because, yes, as you noted, he's not president. But in the past, when, when there's been a major announcement and it did involve like a, a private sector figure speaking, they would speak about how great America is and how important it is to be in investing in the future of this great country. But instead this guy gets up there and be like, God, this guy Donald Trump. What a deal maker he is. It's all about Trump. It's all about him. And so it is like.

[Jon Lovett]

Sounds like. Sounds like it was pretty smart of that guy.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, it's another exact. Just more blending. Yeah, it's more blending of like the private and the public and making it less about the country and more about Donald Trump personally. That said, like, you know, Joe Biden believes in tradition and institutions and we should only have one president at a time. And I think it's a surprising choice to allow it to be Donald Trump. But if that's what his plan is, I think it's about his long term respect for our kind of our basic mores.

[Tommy Vitor]

I was shocked to Biden has never been in the Army Navy game as president. That really surprised me because it's very fun. I went to one, it was a blast.

[Jon Lovett]

We went to one. And Joe Biden was there.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, Joe Biden was there. Like, it also was just down the.

[Jon Lovett]

Road in Maryland as Vice President Obama.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, he won his VP with Obama in 2011, but not as president. I mean, I think Trump generally is very good at using social events to like, show off this kind of pageantry and trappings of the presidency. He does it better than I think any president in our lifetime. Better than Obama, better than Biden. There were. Sports are sometimes part of it. There was the ultimate fighting thing he did recently with like Elon and the goon squad of Flick, Speaker Johnson and those guys. He went to college football games, but like Army, Navy, it's like football wrapped in the military. And it just, it's, it's like an obvious winner for him, which is why it's so odd that Biden wouldn't go for his last one when it's just down the road. But I get, like you said, they did it in a smart way. They brought Pete Hegseth, which kind of showed the world that he's still behind that nomination. He brought together congressional leaders. Like, they had Speaker Johnson and John Thune in the same box with Trump, I think plotting out strategy. Like, everyone's having a good time.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, well, they all. I feel like none of them want to be too far from Trump. Like Mike Johnson goes because he's everywhere. They're about to do the vote for speaker and he feels like he's got it, but he doesn't want. He wants to make, you know, and Elon, he can't shake Elon no matter where he goes. Now I do think it was, I.

[Jon Favreau]

Think it was probably, probably not ultimately helpful when Pete Hegseth streaked towards the end of the game. Well, got a little too loose.

[Tommy Vitor]

I think he's only got cold out there.

[Jon Lovett]

He's only got a couple more weeks to drink.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's right.

[Kamala Harris]

That's right.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right.

[Jon Lovett]

So you know, that's right. Get it, get it while you can. I don't want to see it to seem like we are harping on the Army Navy game. Attendance of Joe Biden as or non Attendance of Joe Biden as. Like the issue here. Politico did a story about this last week. They said across nearly two weeks abroad since the election, when he went abroad to Angola and other places, Biden spoke just seven words to the media traveling with him the entire foreign trip.

[Tommy Vitor]

He go fuck your.

[Jon Lovett]

He has yet to schedule a post election press conference, as both President Obama and President George W. Bush did when they were on their way out of office. He went to the Rose Garden to publicly praise a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and he spoke to the press about Assad fleeing Syria. But otherwise, that's it.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, it's also really funny. Remember 2016, when people were all worked up about the Logan act and unauthorized diplomacy by American citizens. And now you got Trump. Trump went to Paris, he went to Notre Dame. He met with Zelensky. He's taken calls from foreign leaders. Justin Trudeau flew down to Mar a Lago for dinner. His, like, his emissaries are over in Israel right now meeting with Netanyahu, talking about Gaza.

[Jon Favreau]

You have, you have people like Elon Musk. These are unelected, just billionaire donors having meetings with foreign heads of state on Trump's behalf.

[Tommy Vitor]

Iran, like what, what are you talking.

[Jon Lovett]

During the Obama transition, how many times Barack Obama said the words while he was announcing cabinet appointees and staff, which was the only time he really went out. One president at a time. One president at a time. That was like the whole, that was the whole theme. And he's not the first to do that. That's what they usually do. There was a couple of White House officials that went on background to Politico for the story. And some Biden aides acknowledge the president's absence from the broader discussions about how to address Trump's coming presidency in the future of the party. They say that, they say it's rooted in two factors. One, Biden's own recognition that few are eager to hear from him and his own lingering personal belief that he doesn't owe much more to A party that unceremoniously pushed him aside. And then another White House official, former White House official, said he's been so cavalier and selfish about how he approaches the final weeks of the job. Which. That's a lot for a former White House official. I mean, like, I get the recognition that maybe people aren't willing to hear from him is understandable that he might think that. Right. The party thing, I hope is not true, because I don't know. What do you guys think he could be doing?

[Tommy Vitor]

Quiet quitting.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think that's what we're getting.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, yeah. That seems like be what he is doing. Yeah. Instead.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yes. Got it.

[Jon Lovett]

You know, but instead of just complaining that he's not out there, I'm wondering what we think he.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Trying to, like, separate my, like, frustration with basically, Joe Biden in his final year and culminating in that debate and hanging on that, like, how much we paid for having somebody who just wasn't an articulate and comprehensible messenger, not just on behalf of his own presidency, but on behalf of, like, progressivism, democracy. Right. And, like, I am very angry about that. And I'm a little bit mad at myself for not being more honest about how I felt or not seeing it as plainly because I think we're obviously paying dearly for it. I guess what I'm more concerned about is less like, am I seeing Joe Biden enough? Maybe he's right that people don't want to hear from him. It's more like, do I feel confident right now that Joe Biden behind the scenes, is thinking of every single way he can try to future proof the White House that he's thinking through all the different levers of powers, the kind of creative ways in which he can do everything to protect everyone from undocumented DACA recipients to trans people, to the benefits of the inflation reduction? I think there are very smart people thinking about that, and I hope they succeed. And it sounds like from that memo the White House put out that they are thinking about the best ways to do that. But do I think Joe Biden himself is, like, at command being thinking about this, like, right now? Like, I don't. I just honestly don't.

[Jon Lovett]

Maybe he is. I. You can't tell.

[Jon Favreau]

We can't tell.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

I think on the staff level, like, they're just shoving money out the door from the CHIPS act and the IRA and trying to get as much of that spent as they can so Trump can't peel it back. They're also doing that with Ukraine, and they Just, they just pushed out a huge loan to the Ukrainians that's basically paid for by seized Russian assets, Like, the interest on that, those assets. So that's significant. They're pushing through a lot of judges. I think he's about to beat Trump's record from the first term, the most judges confirmed. So those are things he is doing, things he could be doing. Like, I'd love to see him say, cut off all military support for the war in Gaza. Like, why not? Trump might turn it back on, but, like, let's stop the carnage for a couple months and say fuck you to Bibi. Like, let. Similarly, in Syria, there's a huge opportunity right now to shape whatever comes next. We could decide to take off some sanctions, things that are politically risky because the. The people in charge now have roots in terrorist organizations. But Joe Biden doesn't have to worry about politics going forward. Like, maybe they could move to close Gitmo. I don't know if this is feasible given the laws that were passed by Congress, but there's 30 people left at Gitmo. Cost half a billion a year to keep it open. Sixteen of them have been cleared for transfer because they have not been charged, and they pose no risk. Get those guys out of there. You need to figure out a country to send them to. You get that process going. But, like, there's some things you could do that would be really pretty historic.

[Jon Lovett]

I said this on Friday, but I also hope that he. There's 30 or 40 inmates, federal inmates on death row. He could reduce their sentences. He could save them from the death penalty and just reduce it to life in prison without parole for those federal inmates. And just more broadly, like, he could be giving a series of speeches or press conferences where he talks about the importance of defending democratic institutions, which was very. I know that's not a political winner, but it was important to him for his presidency. It seems to be the. Seems, you know, and also he, more specifically, he could talk about, like you were saying, Lovett, actions that he's taking to do that now. Maybe he still may do that. Right? Like, and if he does, wonderful, we'll be the first to praise him. But it's just. It's odd that, you know, he. He talked about Donald Trump being an existential threat to democracy for so long. And I wasn't necessarily critical when he, like, met with Donald Trump and smiled for the cameras because he's clearly, he wants to prove and show that he believes in democracy and the transfer, the peaceful transfer of power. I totally agree with that. But he could still sort of speak to the angst. A lot of people in the country are feeling like seems to be a good role for a president.

[Jon Favreau]

There's a debate about what the president can do on behalf of, say, DACA recipients. And there are some legal scholars that assert the president can use the pardon power. Even though immigration violations are civil to pardoned DACA recipients or undocumented immigrants more broadly. There are some people that say that that would create problems there. There's a debate about whether. Because it's never been used in that way, but whatever. There's lots of ways in which presidential, like someone, you. Then you use it, you assert it. Right. Like, is there a debate right now about whether President Biden can. Can pardon DACA recipients? Is he asking about that? And others are saying no. Are people coming to him with that and he's not sure. Right. Like, is that debate unfolding? I have no idea.

[Jon Lovett]

That seems like that would be a good question for someone to ask in a press conference.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, Right. But this is, I think, like right now, like, I don't know what we're meant to think is happening. Right. And we get a memo that basically lays out the fact that, that Joe Biden is going to try to use his time most effectively over the next couple of weeks. But the memo exists in part because Joe Biden either is unwilling or unable to go to the microphone and explain himself.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I mean, there's just give so much space on foreign policy. Like, so much foreign policy is bound up with stupid politics, especially in Florida. Like, Obama tried to take a bunch of steps to normalize relations with Cuba. Trump wound them all back. Biden kind of went halfway to the Obama position. Why not just get rid of the stupid sanctions on Cuba or normalize relations in some way or allow travel or remittances at the maximum level possible. There's all these things you could do that really would be historic and important. And when you're unencumbered by politics, why not run through the tape.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

We'Re going to load up a frame for to give to Tommy. Yeah, for him to give to his.

[Jon Lovett]

Family and he, he he. It's going to be a surprise for him because he probably not listening to this.

[Jon Favreau]

He's not listening to this.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And they're going to be all above board. Every one of those photos, just family friendly photos is a family friendly product from a family friendly company. And they can be family friendly photos. Family friendly photos 100%. And that's, that's the truth.

[Jon Lovett]

Save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get 35 off Aura's best selling Carver Matte frames by using promo code crooked at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code CROOKED. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply. Speaking of the pardon power, Dan and I praised Biden on Friday's show for the single largest act of clemency in modern history. But over the last few days, we've all learned more about the big batch of commutations that the White House announced last week. Some of them aren't looking so great, including a former judge in Pennsylvania who was serving a 17 and a half year sentence for getting kickbacks from private prisons in exchange for giving more than 2500 juveniles the harshest possible sentence, even though most of them didn't deserve it. So the private for profit prison gives the judge money and the judge says, I'll fill up your prison with juveniles whether they deserve it or not.

[Jon Favreau]

It's a cartoon evil scheme. It's a cartoon evil scheme.

[Jon Lovett]

It came to be known as the Kids for Cash scandal. And some Democrats have blasted Biden for the decision, including Governor Josh Shapiro. This was in Pennsylvania, of course, who noted that some children took their lives because of this. What on earth do you think the White House was thinking?

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, I think they pardoned all the people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the pandemic under the CARES Act.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. Which was Trump, which was this was.

[Tommy Vitor]

The remaining like 1500 or so. So they just did a blanket pardon. I guess they didn't individually vet all the people on that list.

[Jon Favreau]

Or commutation. Commutation.

[Tommy Vitor]

Commutation. Yeah. Sorry. And so I don't know, I guess like to take the other side of this argument, I think stories like this, examples like this are why pardons and clemency are really, really hard to do politically. Because by definition, you are releasing someone who did something illegal and or untoward. And the argument is that they have changed. Now, I'm not like defending these people on the merits. The kids for cash people sound awful, as does this Woman who stole like, what, $54 million from the, the city of Dixon, the comptroller. But I think both of them were due to be released between two to four years from now. And we're on home confinement anyway. So maybe they figured rather than pluck out exceptions and start that process, you just kind of do the blanket 1500 and get it over with.

[Jon Lovett]

I think that's probably what happened. Yeah. The CARES program under Trump sent 12,000 prisoners to home confinement. Right. And the vast, vast majority of them were convicted of white collar and other nonviolent crimes. So for the last several years, you've got all these white collar, nonviolent criminals serving out home confinement. And so you're right, they must have just did a blanket. But like, I don't know. Obviously that's the, the counsel's office, the lawyers. You'd think a few political people would have eyes on that. Just to comb through, just to comb through the names. I don't know. I mean, it is, I will say there was, I saw this on Twitter. There was like a bunch of people who are prison abolitionists who are complaining about Biden releasing the kids for cash guy and some other people. And I was like, that's interesting, because if you're a prison abolitionist, right. I mean, it does speak to the challenge that you're bringing up, Tommy, which is like part of the reason you do a pardon is because you're like, yeah, someone did something bad and we want to, we don't believe they should be in. Everyone should be in jail for it. But like, yeah, it's.

[Jon Favreau]

It was a tough one. It was interesting watching a bunch of people on the left being really critical of this because this was a monstrous crime that I think basically kind of, it was a kind of like for profit version of the cruelty and unfairness that the judicial system often meets out. Right. So this is somebody receiving clemency for participating in the larger evil these people are, are spending their lives fighting against. So that, that's what made it, I think, like, a little bit, like, confusing, but it also does expose that, like even people that advocate for whatever, prison abolition, there's a part of us that demands justice and that wants someone like this thrown away for fucking ever. But I think part of the deeper.

[Jon Lovett]

Thing is like, also, prison abolition is crazy. I'm just say that it's crazy, but you murder someone, you're going to keep them away from people for sure.

[Jon Favreau]

And then. No, no. And I just want to, I just want to second that. We're in similar t shirts, similar view on murder, but I'll take the slings and arrows.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's fine.

[Jon Favreau]

But the pardon power is strange and, like, silly and. Yes, but. So I think what's so galling about these examples is just like, who gets mercy in our system? And it's like there are so many people that deserve mercy, and they deserve it before these corrupt public officials. And the other part, too is it's like Donald Trump, he cut taxes for the rich, he vilified immigrants, he shifted the court to the right, and he basically decriminalized corruption. And we are going to pay for that. Like, corruption is a cancer, and these are corrupt officials. And it would be nice if one of the ways in which Joe Biden kind of defended the values he cares about is to. Is to strongly defend laws that protect against corruption, which is what these people were punished for.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And if you listen to some of the families of those kids, especially the kids who took their own lives, it's fucking heartbreaking. So Kamala Harris was at the DNC holiday party, too, where Biden told her.

[Jon Favreau]

Quote, mood was festive. I'm sure.

[Jon Lovett]

Biden told her, quote, you're not going anywhere, kid, because we're not going to let you go. Okay, we haven't really touched on this, on the home confinement. What are we talking about here? What do you guys think Harris's next move should be? There's a couple stories. There's one in the Washington Post, there's one on CNN about how she's thinking. She's just trying to decide right now between, according to her advisors that talked on background, whether she will run for governor of California in 2026 or not run for governor in 2026 and run for president in 2028. And it is unclear right now which way she is leaning. And I guess there could be a third option, which she doesn't either.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I'm interested in that third option.

[Kamala Harris]

The.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, no, I'm just curious what it is. Can't I just be curious about what it is? I've said my part.

[Jon Lovett]

Tommy.

[Tommy Vitor]

I mean, if I were her and I really wanted to stay in public service, I would run for governor. I think you are almost guaranteed to win that primary. It's a huge job. What's California like? The fifth biggest economy in the world? If it were a country on its own, I mean, it's an enormous. An enormous task. And then trying to run for president again, like, nothing is guaranteed.

[Jon Lovett]

This may sound quaint, maybe a little naive. I think you should sit down and think to yourself. And I would give this advice to her or any politician, really. What do I really want to do? What issues do I care about? Where can I make the biggest difference? And, you know, she. At one point, I think this. They said this in the Washington Post story. She was trying to decide when she was attorney general of California whether she wanted to run for Senate or run for governor. And she made a list of pros and cons, and she decided that her skills were better suited for the U.S. senate. Right. Like, she should look at the California gubernatorial race, and if she feels like she can really make a difference and she loves the idea of being governor of our state and wants to tackle these issues, she should do it. If she really, truly believes that she should be president again and she has a strong theory of the case on why she should and how she can contribute, then she should do that. But, like, you know, I. And I don't. I'm not saying she's doing this, but sometimes advisors do this and, you know, fundraisers do this, and everyone else, it's like, I don't think doing, like, should I be in this slot or that slot or what's better or what can I win? Like, that's obviously a consideration, but I think from the candidate themselves, you gotta really think about what you want to do.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Kamala Harris]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

I thought that was, like, the dumb media prism through which it was being. I assume she's doing exactly what you're saying, which is figure out. But I think if you were to ask her what is she most passionate about? It has been domestic issues. It has been law enforcement, it has been criminal justice. Things that she can do as governor.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

And she's. And she's run statewide in California and been the, you know, top law enforcement officer here.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I do think. Look, I think she has paid politically for having come up as a prosecutor, then run for president at a time when that was seen as a liability and shifting to the left on a bunch of issues and then walking away from those positions. And if you were to ask me right now, what are Kamala's views, actual personal views, on a host of those issues, I sincerely would say, like, I think she's a consensus builder. I think she. But, like, I don't actually know. And if she is going to want to seek, whether it's California governorship or national office, I think, like, it's about taking the time to figure out an ideological perspective that, like, informs everything that she does going forward. Because I do think some of the ways in which she's had these, like whether it was tough interviews in the 2024 race or the quotes that were taken out of what she said in the 2020 race, like the lack of that. I think worldview and ideology is going to make it very, very hard for her to get past the previous two runs. That's my concern.

[Jon Lovett]

Can I share with you guys a quote from a Harris campaign advisor in the Washington Post story, please? It's almost Shakespearean that Joe Biden didn't just kill his own campaign, he killed hers too. So no love lost there.

[Tommy Vitor]

What about that is Shakespearean?

[Jon Favreau]

It's not particularly Shakespearean. Honestly, it's not at all. Actually, it's more Shakespearean. Actually, it's more. If you want to say it's Shakespearean, you have to find the ways in which her own deeper flaws were ultimately her undoing, which would be, I think, more dramatic.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, it's more of a two for one, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Anyway, guess it's like Romeo and Juliet, they're both fucking dead.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, no. Maybe that's it.

[Jon Favreau]

Just star crossed lovers Joe Biden and Paul.

[Jon Lovett]

Anyway, if you're the Harris campaign advisor, please tell us what you meant. We'll keep you an honest.

[Jon Favreau]

It's almost Shakespearean. Almost.

[Jon Lovett]

Okay. Two other big things people are talking about that are more politics adjacent drones and daylight saving time. Oh, yeah, let's take drones first. As you probably know, since the middle of last month, lots of people in New Jersey and some other states now have reported seeing mysterious drones, like things flying in the night sky. No one has been able to provide any definitive answers. The Pentagon says they're not US Military or enemy drones. White House says they're mostly manned aircraft. Finding that incoming New Jersey Senator Andy Kim confirmed after going out drone spotting himself. Good for Andy Kim. Love Andy Kim. But like a lot of other people, he's also expressed frustration that the federal government hasn't done more to alleviate people's concerns. Kim wrote on Twitter on Saturday, quote, I think the situation in some ways reflects this moment in our country. People have a lot of anxiety right now about the economy, health, security, et cetera. And too often we find that those charged with working on these issues don't engage the public with the respect and depth needed. Case in point, Donald Trump, for his part, said in the Monday morning press conference, the government knows what's happening and that something strange is going on. For some reason, they don't want to tell people and they should, before adding that maybe he didn't want to spend the weekend in Bedminster after All. And then when he was asked also, have you been. Have you received an intelligence briefing on this? He said, I shouldn't comment on that. Love the restraint.

[Kamala Harris]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Finally showing some. Yeah, showing some. Showing some discipline. Yeah. Man, it is tough having a country when you're like, what are the drones? Well, some of them are manned and maybe some of them are or are hobbyists and actually we don't know what some of them. And then the next president says, grabs the microphones like it might be the Jews.

[Tommy Vitor]

He also truth let the public know and now otherwise shoot them down. So these are unmanned. So I mean, I think, look, this phenomenon is. I think the reality is there. There's a lot of stuff in our airspace at all times, and if you start looking up, you're going to start seeing things. And people don't know what they're looking at from the ground because none of us are experts. But then.

[Jon Lovett]

But you've had the highest security clearance of them, all three of us. What. What do you know about the aliens.

[Tommy Vitor]

Is aliens? And so people get worried, they start talking about it, then everyone else starts looking. And then stuff starts going around social media and the craziest shit gets shared the most. Like, I saw a video alleging that it was drones searching for a lost Ukrainian nuclear weapon.

[Jon Favreau]

I saw that, too.

[Tommy Vitor]

And I saw that because Joe Rogan, we believe it and I believe.

[Jon Favreau]

I saw it and I believe it. This is why.

[Jon Lovett]

This is why more of us need to go on Rogan, shoot them.

[Jon Favreau]

Shoot them down.

[Tommy Vitor]

Liberal Joe Rogan, whatever. And then that was compounded by wildly irresponsible members of Congress, like New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith said, oh, my God. The elusive maneuvering of these drones suggests a major military power sophistication that begs the question whether they've been deployed to test our defense capabilities or worse, by violent dictatorships, perhaps maybe Russia, China, Iran or North Korea. Richard Blumenthal called for the drones to be shot down again. We want to use live missiles over US territory to blow up things in the sky. They're harming no one. Not remembering that those. That metal will then fall on the ground.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow.

[Jon Lovett]

Also, I think maybe kill people.

[Jon Favreau]

It might have been some fucking Beta fag shit. Shoot them down. Shoot them down.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's like they're unrun Chinese.

[Jon Favreau]

Shoot them down.

[Jon Lovett]

Another. It might have been the same Republican House member from New Jersey that you just mentioned, but he does a press conference with local police officers and he's like, I want to give local police the authority to shoot down the drones. Now we're just telling police to just shoot things in the shoes.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. What is this country?

[Jon Lovett]

What's going on here?

[Jon Favreau]

You know what? If the government won't, if the federal government won't shoot some of these things down, we're going to have no choice but to give your meanest friend from high school the authority. That's what's going to happen. That's where this ends up. Look, by the way. And that's the second worst option because what's really going to happen is randos are going to start going outside and shooting at drones.

[Jon Lovett]

And one of them, of course they are.

[Jon Favreau]

And you know what? Some of these drones are planes. And those planes have people in them. So we got to just shoot one down. Can we just shoot one down, make.

[Jon Lovett]

Sure it's a drone? That's what the Republican congressman said. Yeah. He's like, we don't have to get them. No. A mayor said that? Some mayor in New Jersey. Like, we don't. We don't have to shoot them all down. Just one. To see what's going on.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

So John Kirby seems smart to me. John Kirby, at the, at the briefing on Monday, what's Kirby's title?

[Jon Favreau]

So Deep State head. Let's see what, let's see what the Deep State has to say.

[Tommy Vitor]

Like National Security spokesperson right there.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

What I sound like that.

[Jon Lovett]

He said, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed wing aircraft, helicopter helicopters, and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones. Seems like we have a great.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's the thing. Here's the good news. Here's the good news. All right. Obviously, I think the worst case scenario would be shooting down a passenger aircraft.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yes.

[Jon Lovett]

Thank you. Wow.

[Jon Favreau]

Going out on a limb after that.

[Jon Lovett]

You guys pay the big bucks for.

[Jon Favreau]

After that.

[Jon Lovett]

Hezbollah over here.

[Jon Favreau]

After that. After that, if you shoot down a hobbyist drone, I don't care, bring them down. Those people should be sadder, frankly. Commercial drones, government drones, shoot one down, take a look.

[Jon Lovett]

And when you look in the air, you'll be able to tell which is which. Right.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm not. I think you should be really sure. Just let's be really sure.

[Jon Lovett]

Someone tell Elon Musk about this guy. We got to get him in government.

[Jon Favreau]

No, I'm going to. If I'm going to press the Elon button, it's going to be around daylight saving time.

[Jon Lovett]

We're getting there.

[Tommy Vitor]

But Andy's tweets were great. He's the newly elected New Jersey senator. He's out there, like, doing, you know, constituent services and communicating well and clearly in this thread. I think. I think it's fair to say that to date, the US Government's communication wasn't great. They weren't necessarily answering the mail on people's anxieties. But in their defense, it's nearly impossible to comment when some, like, member of Congress calls the White House and is like, hey, Biden, what's floating over Menden.

[Jon Favreau]

New Jersey, right now?

[Jon Lovett]

You know, that's not like, yeah, they did say that, like, there were thousands of tips, and out of all those tips, only, like, a very small percentage turned out to be anything in the sky.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, Right. Even some of it is like, yeah, right.

[Tommy Vitor]

Even, like, Larry Hogan was filming stars and you know, and just completely wrong about what he was seeing. The governor.

[Jon Lovett]

Those were just stars from Larry Hogan.

[Tommy Vitor]

I think so.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. No, yeah. I believe the Larry Hogan ones turned out to be celestial bodies, which is tough. It's tough.

[Jon Lovett]

People. People are losing their minds.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, look, I love a good mania. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. People are losing it out there. I also do like Andy Kim being like, I think it's economic anxiety. It's like, okay, like, I'm with you. I'm with you to a point.

[Jon Lovett]

Speaking of mania that has you losing your mind. Daylight Saving Time, by the way, when Reid wrote this, and then he asked me, and then I. He's like, did you know it was called Daylight Saving Time and not savings time? And I was like, I. I learned that just in this moment when you sent me the script.

[Jon Favreau]

That's wrong. Yes, I know it should be Daylight Savings Time, but it is technically Daylight Saving Time.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's like saying Attorneys General, like, I know.

[Jon Lovett]

I hate that. Anyway, Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would try to end it, which seems like he probably means make it permanent. You can. You can get into that. It's a move that has support in a lot of quarters, including top flunkies like Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Marco Rubio, and most importantly, our own John Lovett. Take it away.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, so he does probably, almost certainly means making Daylight Saving Time permanent. He actually tweeted that in, I think, 2019. So currently there is a bill in Congress called the Sunshine Protection Act. It is sponsored by Rubio and Padilla in California, also Ed Markey in Massachusetts, Patty Murray and a bunch of other senators. 20 states have already passed, by ballot measure or legislation, state rules that would Switch to permanent daylight saving time if Congress allows it. Now I have actually like I used to think yes, of course we should switch to permanent daylight saving time. That used to be my position. I really dug into it for a while. I did a lot of interviews, did a lot of, did a lot of reading about it and I have a more nuanced view on it, which is basically the, there's. It's not a surprise that it's being led by a Massachusetts senator, Florida senator and California senators. Florida and California were further south. All that means is our winters aren't as dark and our, our summers aren't as bright. Right. The closer you get to the equator, the less the time shifts. You know, not, not with time zones but just with just longer days and shorter days. In Massachusetts, in the dead of winter right now in Maine or Massachusetts, the sun is setting around 4 o'clock. It gets late, it gets even to into the threes. Right. But in a state like Michigan, which is in the same Stein zone, it's fully an hour later. Right. Because they're further west in the time zone. So it makes sense that a bunch of east far like Maine, Massachusetts, Florida, California, all these states would want to do it.

[Jon Lovett]

The problem is I was in Vancouver the other weekend and it was like 4:00 and dark.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. So what? Like even in California, like in California, Los Angeles, the sun, the sun set in Los Angeles will be almost an hour later than it will be in Seattle or Portland. So some of this is where you're located. What needs to happen is Congress needs to amend the Uniform time Act of 1966 to allow for a third option. And then every state can choose between permanent Daylight saving time, Permanent standard time or continuing to make the switch. This is the compromise, this is the solution. Because there we did do permanent Daylight saving time in the 70s during the oil crisis. And a lot of, in a lot of places people hated it. Because there are places where if you go to permanent daylight saving time, sunrise won't be until either close to 9 or even after 9am oh wow.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

People, people don't like people. If you poll them say they don't like daylight saving Time, really what they mean is they don't like springing forward, they hate losing the hour, they hate the time switch. And the time switch does suck. But really what people like are longer days in the summer and shorter days in the winter. And unfortunately you can't legislate for that. But I like if I had to choose between the switch and permanent daylight saving time I would choose that, but that's because we live in California, which is a place that would benefit from being in permanent Daylight Saving Time. But there are states like Michigan. Michigan, for example, should actually switch to Permanent Standard Time, because in Michigan, in the summer, the sunset is so late.

[Jon Lovett]

Is it possible? Can a possible solution be that some like.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, yes, yes. Because in practice. Right. I think a few states would continue to switch. If you pass the Rubio marquee Murray bill, then everybody's going to be on permanent Daylight Saving Time. But if you pass a law that just allowed states to choose between, just add the third option, letting them choose permanent Daylight saving time, about 20 states, their laws would go into effect. And then some states would either choose to keep switching or stay on Permanent Standard Time. Michigan is. Is so, like, if you look at the time zone map, Michigan is so far to the west. I know. I. Now I know. I feel this was the moment. I went too long. The. This was the moment.

[Tommy Vitor]

Will you let me know when this wraps?

[Kamala Harris]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Michigan. Michigan is so far west of Massachusetts, it doesn't really make sense that they're in the same time zone. Michigan should be in Permanent Standard Time. Wisconsin can be on permanent Daylight Saving Time. In practice, what that means is they're both in the central time zone. Michigan would just shift one time zone over.

[Jon Lovett]

One can only hope that when Mr. Trump and his lawyers are reviewing the part of this episode where you accused him of killing JonBenet Ramsey, they continue listening to this part so they can understand the best solution to Daylight Saving Time.

[Tommy Vitor]

Could we get the drones involved with little mirrors?

[Jon Lovett]

For sure. For sure.

[Tommy Vitor]

Make more sun.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, you know, there's going to be companies that are going to start allowing you in the night to rent light via mirrors.

[Tommy Vitor]

What?

[Jon Favreau]

There are companies that have, like, they want to put satellites up that have big reflectors, and then you could go on your phone, on your. Literally on your phone and say, I would like it to be light out on my yard at this time. And they'll turn the mirrors and you'll have daylight on your yard.

[Jon Lovett]

Dystopia.

[Jon Favreau]

Is that dystopia? Okay, what about AI? Permanent sunlight corrupt. Fucking dumbasses. Present. What about this screams dystopia to you?

[Tommy Vitor]

What's the thing called that you build around the sun for permanent, unlimited energy?

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, you mean like to become a Type A Type 2 civilization?

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know what it's called.

[Jon Lovett]

Elon will tell us. All right, that's enough for that, I guess. Or do you want to put a button on this. Is there a call to action?

[Jon Favreau]

There is a call to action. The call to action would be to say we do not need to argue about whether the whole country should be on permanent Standard Time. Oh, by the way, the scientists and the nerds, they're all for permanent standard Time. I've interviewed them. They're fucking wrong. They're just wrong about it because they are confusing the benefits of not switching to the benefits of standard time. We should switch to permanent Daylight Saving Time in a lot of places. And There's a reason 20 states have passed it. But no, this is the compromise. The whole country doesn't have to switch, and the whole country doesn't have to have one policy. It won't be complicated because you go through a period of transition over a year or two, which people can choose which time zone they want, and then basically you just end up with a new time zone map and we never have to deal with this again. Most places would choose either Permanent Standard Time or permanent Daylight Saving Time. A few might keep continue to switch. But we know that that's fine because Arizona doesn't switch. Right? And we. Society moves on. Yeah, society is fine and so does Arizona.

[Jon Lovett]

Okay, when we come back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna about his promises to work with Elon Musk on the Doge Agenda, what worries him most about his second Trump term and more. But one quick thing before we do that. If you've been wondering what the hell is going on in Syria and how the US Government is approaching it, or want to understand many of the other major international stories happening around the world, check out Pod Save the World.

[Tommy Vitor]

I Gotcha.

[Jon Lovett]

Hosted by this guy over here, Tommy Vitor. And fancy title here, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes.

[Tommy Vitor]

You gotta buff him up. Shine em up for the promo.

[Jon Favreau]

Look at that.

[Jon Lovett]

Pod Save the World drops every Wednesday. Find it wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. YouTube. When we come back, Rocana Pods of America is brought to you by the Zero Emission Transportation Association Education Fund. The Zeta Education Fund is working to ensure more Americans are aware of the positive economic impact the EV and battery supply chain is having on communities across the country, especially since the passage of the Inflation Reduction act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. So here are the facts to date. The EV and battery supply chain has already created 240,000 jobs, attracted $177 billion of investment, and supports millions of more jobs in the electricity industry. More than a million EVs were sold in the US last year. And three out of four were made in America. There are currently 200,000 public charging locations in the United States and 1,000 more coming online each week. EVs are great cars, but it's also important to know that they're already making a positive economic impact, creating jobs and strengthening communities. Whether or not you drive one, join forces with the Zeta Education Fund and help spread the facts about what a transition to EVs means to the future of the United States. Get on [e-mail] join that's zeta.org join.

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Jon Lovett]

This is an advertisement from BetterHelp. The holiday season is, as they say, the most wonderful time of the year. It can be filled with joy and happiness, but it can also be the most stressful time of the year. Scheduling conflicts, added expenses, family dynamics and drama can all take a toll. So it's important to slow down and not lose sight of your mental well being. Therapy is a great way to do just that. Not only during this stressful time of the year, but all year long. And BetterHelp online therapy is a great way to get into therapy. BetterHelp is designed to be convenient, flexible and built around your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a credentialed therapist that fits your needs and preferences Once matched, you can connect via phone, video, text or chat. Whatever works for you. It's surprisingly affordable too. So this holiday season, give yourself a gift you can appreciate all year round. Therapy is important. Obviously it's been a stressful, stressful time, stressful couple weeks, stressful couple months, stressful year, nine years. It's a great gift to yourself to go to therapy and talk with someone about it. It's really helpful. Visit betterhelp.com PSA today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp H-E-L-P.com PSA Ro Khanna welcome back to Pod Save America.

[Kamala Harris]

Thanks for having me.

[Jon Lovett]

So you've been out there a lot since the election and I want to say start by asking about your approach to politics, which seems to be more economically populist than most Democratic politicians, but also more willing to talk and work with people Democrats disagree with, whether it's Republicans, Fox News, Elon Musk I feel like that overall approach is popular with most voters, but a harder sell with left leaning politicians, pundits, activists and otherwise very engaged liberals and leftists who helped drive the debate. The people who favor reaching out to the other side usually aren't that into economic populism and the progressive populace aren't that into reaching out to the other side. How do you break through all that and how do you arrive at this approach?

[Kamala Harris]

I don't know if I'll be successful in breaking through. I often get criticized when I do reach across. But I'll tell you where the approach comes from. The two my guiding principles one is substantive, right? So I think you need a whole of society approach to actually tackle economic inequality or the deindustrialization of places. You need, of course, people who are going to be activists and talk about the role of government. You need, in my view, community leaders. You need labor, you need business leaders, you need venture capitalists, you need technology leaders. And that's the only way you're going to be able to build the new industry, the only way you're going to be able to have economic revitalization. And so that approach is not novel. It comes from a view that that's what FDR did in in the New Deal, it's what Hamilton did. And so partly what some see as a contradiction, how is it that I'm advocating for a higher minimum wage and Medicare for all and yet one business leaders and technologists I see as a coalition that is going to actually help achieve the goals of economic revitalization? The second thing in principle, and then is humility. I don't think that I have all the right answers. I think, again, this idea of democratic experimentalism that you try things, but you know that there are people who may push back. Sometimes I tweet things out. People say, oh, you tweeted it out and you were wrong. I was like, okay, I'm thinking out loud. I probably shouldn't think out loud as much on online, but not every idea I have is the truth. And I have a humility to say, you know, when you test your ideas out, maybe they'll get better.

[Jon Lovett]

I've heard you say that. When it comes to Elon Musk, Democrats have to get back to celebrating entrepreneurship and innovation because the average American thinks it's pretty cool that someone like Elon can send rockets into space. I take that point. I think Elon is clearly smart and successful in certain areas. And I have plenty of liberal friends who can't understand why. I don't really like them. But I just wonder if we can be a party that praises entrepreneurship and innovation and also recognize that Elon just hasn't had some bad tweets. He said that, you know, the theory that Jewish communities push hatred against whites is the actual truth. He just recently said, Democrats are the party of criminals, Accused us of importing voters, accused us of wanting to take people's kids. It just feels like all of that goes beyond policy and political disagreements. I know you've known him for a long time. Like, what do you think happened to him is going on with him? Like, where. Where do you come down on all of this?

[Kamala Harris]

But some of those statements are totally indefensible and atrocious. And he knows, I think that. I think I've been quoted as saying sometimes his tweets were like a seventh grader and someone said, that's being charitable to seventh graders. So I have no problem with people who are criticizing Elon Musk legitimately criticizing either. The things he said criticize the idea that he spent $200 billion on an election, and they see that as a symbol of how broken the process is. I mean, I've said we shouldn't have super PACs, and he's kind of been the symbol of that. Criticized him saying that he should have financial disclosure and transparency. I think that's legitimate. But the biggest criticism, which I've had arguments with Musk about is my view is that the two biggest successes he had was made possible by the Obama administration, not just because I worked there, but literally, the President Obama, with the treasury, gave him a loan that saved Tesla. I mean, that was a Treasury loan. And Ash Carter, working for President Obama, allowed him to bid on Lockheed and Boeing's ULA project. It was the Obama administration that disrupted all of that and that allowed it to happen. And he never gives them credit. And I've, I've argued with him that, you know, you really were the beneficiary of a lot of government investment. And why it matters is not for Elon to say it just for Elon, but it has this view that, oh, you can just be an entrepreneur and that's what's fueling America. No, what's fueled America is the combination of very strong, smart, effective government combined with entrepreneurship and unions and labor. And I think he misses that story of that part. So, you know, there are a lot of places I disagree. My only point was that I think sometimes our party doesn't realize that, that there is a role also for entrepreneurs and technologists to play a part in economic revitalization. Now, I don't think that's Doge. It wouldn't be in my top five if I was. If Kamala Harris said one, I would said have Elon Musk figure out how intel could build factories here. But there is a role for, for.

[Jon Lovett]

Business leaders on Doge. I like your idea of trying to work with Musk and the Republicans on that commission. Have you and other Democrats thought about proposing your own list of budget cuts and government reforms that Elon and Trump and the Republicans would then have to respond to?

[Kamala Harris]

We have. I wrote an op ed and we're going to convene a number of Democrats probably in January to talk about what some of those cuts could look like. Let's start with the big buckets in government. The, the big bucket is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, which I don't think there should be a dime cut. And Trump says there shouldn't be a dime cut. Okay, so then you look at the domestic spending. That's not mandatory. 56% of that is discretionary defense spending. It's defense that really, if you want to look at making a dent in the federal budget, it should be examined. And there are plenty of places there that we can have reasonable cuts. The F35 with Lockheed, that's gone $200 billion over the sole source contracts that lead to cost overruns by Boeing or others paying $150,000 for soap dispensers. The lack of competitive bidding. And you just have to watch 60 Minutes in one of these documentaries or segments to realize what we can cut and my hope is that we can start there now. People who say, well, you're legitimizing Doge. I mean, Doge is going to exist whether Democrats participate or not. What legitimized Doge was Donald Trump winning the election? And I rather that we focus the attention on places like defense rather than have Elon go try to cut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And if he tries to do that, I'll be the first person to blast him for that. And, you know, that's one other thing, I guess, with, with mosque or others. I mean, sometimes just because you're working with someone doesn't mean that you can't criticize them. Just because you're going on their podcast doesn't mean you can't say, you know, that's a really dumb idea. I think we can do both. We can. We don't have to kiss up to someone to engage them.

[Jon Lovett]

Do you think from your conversations that those guys are willing to play ball on Doge like that they're going to take your ideas and compromise? Or do you think it's just kind of, you know, I know that they're sort of welcoming your ideas, they've welcomed your ideas, other people, Bernie. But I wonder when push comes to shove, if there, if it's, if it's more for show or they're really interested in working together, I think they will.

[Kamala Harris]

Welcome our ideas genuinely on the Department of Defense. And there, there's an opportunity to get competitive bidding, there's an opportunity to disrupt the five primes, there's an opportunity to go after wasteful spending. What I'm not confident about is are they going to listen to me why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is actually saving Americans money on credit card fees and mortgage fees, or are they just going to say, oh, that's something that Elizabeth Warren put up and so we want to cut it. I mean, obviously I'm going to push back, but I don't think I have more ability to convince Elon Musk that that's a bad idea than any any other member of Congress or person in, in the public. The one thing, John, if I could say that I think that they're wrong about. I had breakfast with Pat Gelsinger, who just was asked to leave as intel CEO. And without revealing anything confidential, I said to him, pat, if you were to rank what obstacle in terms of reindustrialization, America, economic growth over burdensome regulation had, where would you put it? He said, of course we need to streamline it, but it wouldn't be in my Top three or four. I would talk about the need for capital formation. I would talk about the need for having procurement, buying of the things we make. I would talk about having a talented workforce. I would talk about immigration. And what they have done with DOGE is to somehow say that if we could just streamline permitting in America, streamline regulation, that suddenly we were going to have job growth across America. And that's just not true.

[Jon Lovett]

Do you. I don't know if you saw that. Senator Mike Lee and Elon just today both called for repealing the Congressional Impoundment act so that Trump could unilaterally decide not to spend money that Congress appropriates by law. Does that worry you? Do you think that they could have the votes for that?

[Kamala Harris]

It does worry me because under the Congressional Impoundment act, if you do not fill a position that Congress has authorized, then you have to give Congress notice and after 45 days you have to basically fill that position. So repealing that would allow the executive branch to not spend money that Congress is appropriating. So let's just say why does this matter to people? Let's say they decide not to fund a Department of Education folks who are giving Title 1 grants. So if you live in a school district where you have low income, middle income, working class kids, you're not going to get money for the schools, or you may not get money for your IEP program if your kid has special needs or a disability, or you may not be able to get loans like I did to go to college. So, yes, it worries me. And that shouldn't be the President's power, it should be Congress's power.

[Jon Lovett]

Obviously, the margins are pretty close in the House. Do you think there are enough of your Republican colleagues that wouldn't want to give up their own power to appropriate money?

[Kamala Harris]

I say the Republicans have made the entire Federalist Papers theory not work because the whole Federalist Papers were like, yeah, the Congress is going to look out for their own power. They would never give up power to the president. Why would they do that? And they weren't counting on the modern Republican Party in alliance to Trump. No, I can't say anything for, for sure. I wish I could tell you that you're going to have enough members of Congress who wouldn't do that. But this is where I do think the agency of people watching your show matters. When, when people mobilize, when they speak out and when they say that why this matters to their lives, then members of Congress and senators do pay attention. And we blocked a lot of Overreach by Trump in the first administration, when he was trying to separate kids from their families, when he was trying to have a blanket Muslim ban, when he was trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act. And so if people start to say, look, we don't want our kids to lose education or whatever the issue is, and it's not just impoundment as an abstract, then that's our best chance of stopping it.

[Jon Lovett]

What worries you most about a second Trump term?

[Kamala Harris]

That they would put Jamie Raskin in jail or were absent? That. That they would have investigations of people like Raskin, that they will intimidate dissent in this country, that they would make people fearful of criticizing the President. Can American democracy survive that? Absolutely. Can Democrats win in 2026 and 2028? Yes. But will we have significantly degraded American democracy if that happens? Yes. And. And the cost is enormous.

[Jon Lovett]

Do you have faith that the judicial system, as conservative leaning as the Supreme Court is, will act as a. As a bulwark against that?

[Kamala Harris]

I like to have faith that it would prevent the worst cases of miscarriage of justice. But you can do, as you know, John, a lot of harm to people in the process, short of someone actually going to jail. You start an investigation, you make someone's life hard, you have them hired lawyers, you have them dragged in front of committees, and then it's not just destroying a person's life or reputation, the chilling effect that that has to other people to pull punches. And you start to do that to the media, and you start to, you know, now they're thinking of suing Ann Seltzer for a mistake in a poll. I mean, come on, you know, it's so. But you do that. And now are people going to say, well, maybe we shouldn't show Trump's approval ratings to be negative if you start to sue journalists like they did with abc, well, maybe now we've got to be cautious in the words we use. And that, to me, is the irony for a party that believes in free speech to be doing that is what's most chilling. And then on a human level, in my district, when I think of the undocumented, I think of someone in my district without mentioning her name, who's been there 21 years. She's got a daughter who is going to medical school in Southern California. She's a dental hygienist in Northern California, and she drives every morning, once a month, down to see her daughter and then drives back up at night because she can't afford a hotel. The reason she can't afford this is because she's been underpaid, because we haven't been able to have a legalized status. But to me, her life is the American dream. And now you're going to come and start to raid folks and deport folks like her. That's not the America my parents came to. That's not the America that I grew up in, and I don't think that's America. Is there a concern on the borders? Absolutely. Do we have to keep them secure? Yes. Do we want criminals not to be in this country? Yes. But people need to understand the, the sweeping way they're talking about going after the most vulnerable. And I, I don't care what the polls say. I, I believe that this country is better than that.

[Jon Lovett]

I want to ask you about what health care looks like in the next four years. Last time Trump was in office, he tried to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. Probably doesn't have the votes to do that this time around, but he could certainly cut Medicaid, especially in a, in a budget, and the ACA subsidies that you all expanded in the Inflation Reduction Act. He was just asked about the murder of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, which he rightly condemned, but he didn't say anything else about the need for health care reform or the anger people have towards the insurance industry. You've had some great ideas on how to prevent insurance companies from denying so many claims. You talk a lot about the need for Medicare for all. It seems like not only are we years away from any kind of reform, but we may be in a situation where millions of people are losing their health insurance and paying higher premiums over the next four years. What, if anything, do you think Democrats can do about that?

[Kamala Harris]

Well, John, I actually saw a clip of yours on this that I thought was spot on. I mean, one can have the thought that murder is bad, that there doesn't have to be a but after that, that you can say that there's no justification for taking the life of a father of two people. And you can also say that for 20 years, people in this country have been talking about a health care system that's broken and that we need to make progress on giving people real health care. And so, to me, a lot of the commentary is trying to pit one against the other. And I don't understand why. Why can't you have both of those thoughts? Now, you expressed it more succinctly than I did, but that is, I feel like that can be a consensus of Democrats across the spectrum in Congress and the Senate and our Governors and my, my, my view is that ultimately the reason I support Medicare for all is because you're going to lower the administrative costs in the system. You have 2% administrative costs instead of 18%. Today you have 1.4 million people who deny claims or accept claims and only 1 million doctors. So a lot of those folks could be now working in other ways in health care to actually deliver health care services instead of denying or not denying claims. And you can negotiate the prices down if you had Medicare, as President Biden started to do with insulin, but you could do it in on hospital fees, you could do it with drugs. So that's the North Star. Now, how do you get there? I think you get there first by saying, in my view, that private insurance should cover what Medicare would cover if a doctor is prescribing it. Maybe we could get a consensus on that. Maybe we can get some consensus on capping out of pocket costs. Maybe we get some consensus on the rate of premium hikes. But I think you can have a North Star and then work incrementally for progress towards it.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I wish I could say that I expressed it more succinctly or at least more compellingly, but a lot of people are mad at me for how I've talked about it. And, you know, I was talking to some of our, some of our listeners about it, and I very much understand the rage and the anger towards the insurance industry. I totally get that. What I've been trying to figure out is, you know, a lot of people said to me, here's the thing, we, you know, we vote for Democrats, we organize, we go out there every election, we volunteer, and then we put Democrats into office. And it just never seems like we make any progress on healthcare reform. And, you know, they'll say, I know that you worked on the ACA and that improved things somewhat, but it's still hell. The insurance system is still hell. And I'm losing hope that we can make any kind of progress on healthcare reform. And that's why, you know, I don't think people who, you know, are celebrating the murder or at least excusing it shouldn't be the focus. The focus should be like, you know, what are we going to do to change this system? And it's. To me, it's like a really hard thing to explain to folks that, no, you got to keep organizing and you got to keep voting and you got to keep working towards a better solution here because, you know, it's been many, many years, and it seems like the best we could do was stop Donald Trump from repealing the aca. You know, Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress, you guys beefed up the insurance subsidies, which is great. But clearly there's a lot of pain and anger out there. And I don't, I don't really. I'm sort of at a loss at this point what to tell people about the best path forward.

[Kamala Harris]

Well, yes, there's pain and anger, but I think you can say that pain and anger has to be channeled constructively. You know, my politics come from my grandfather. He spent four, four years in jail as part of Gandhi's independence movement. He had this view called satyagra. And it was basically that you organize in peaceful protest action that matters, but one that thinks the best of humanity, and that's how you make progress. And that influenced, in part the civil rights movement and I think of the Civil rights. The first Civil Rights act that was introduced by Senator Humphrey and Paul Douglas, a great senator from Illinois, in 1950. And, you know, when it passes in 1964, it took years of organizing. And that fight, in my view, was a much harder fight than even getting health care for everyone. And that was a fight against vicious racism and segregation. John Lewis wasn't out there saying, celebrating killings what he was. In fact, when there would be someone who would be killed in that. In the civil rights movement, the civil rights leaders were the first to say that is antithetical to who we are because we just don't want to win. We want something better. We want a better civilization. And so my view, and maybe it's. Some will say it's naive, is it's fine for the left to be asymmetrically better. We're trying to build a better civilization. We're trying to build a better society. We don't have to get in the mud when they curse. We don't have to curse back when they, when they are negative, we can say no. We believe in a better vision for humanity and we organize and we make progress. And ultimately, I think we're going to get there.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. One thing I always think about is, you know, we often say that Democrats, we don't want to be Republican light on policy because that doesn't give people a real choice. Why wouldn't they just go with Republicans instead of Republican light? And then when we talk about our approach to politics, I kind of think it's the same thing. Because if we're going to act just like Republicans, then it's not really giving people much of a choice because why wouldn't they just go with Republicans because they're going to be tougher and, and they're going to slash and burn and they're going to play dirtier and they're not going to follow the rules or follow the laws. So I might as well just vote for Republicans instead of if Democrats are going to do the same thing. So part of me thinks that, like you said, we're trying to build our job is harder in a way, because we are trying to restore people's faith or at least buttress people's faith in the power of collective action and a government where we take care of each other and look out for each other. And I just think that's a, it's a harder, it's a harder thing to do now, partly because of the problems that you've talked about, which is, you know, we have economic inequality and people are feeling isolated and they're feeling left behind. And, you know, it does feel like these two things are connected, right, which is the economic inequality and then sort of the cynicism people are feeling towards government and the possibility that we can actually build something better. Is that something you worry about as well?

[Kamala Harris]

I think you're absolutely right. I mean, look, the, the people feel that the political class allowed jobs to be offshored. They allowed wealth to pile up in districts like mine, that $12 trillion in Silicon Valley, their wages have stagnated, their kids aren't being able to buy a car or a house. Then they see politicians, they say, you know, look at this kind of guy. And other ones, they're spending so much of their time fundraising. They're part of a system where if, if you're a lobbyist or someone, you're going to have more access. You've got these billionaires like Elon Musk, and we've got billionaires on our side, too, that are flooding people's screens and we really don't matter. The system is broken, the economy is broken. We need real change. And then I would say there are two different ways you can go. You can either go the Donald Trump way, which is just to express all of that grievance and provide what I believe are sloganeering that not only appeal to the worst of us, blame immigrants, blame the trans community, and aren't going to actually reform the political system or actually help create jobs in Galesburg, or help someone get health care, help get someone get a raise. And by the way, they can also appeal to the worst. You know, when has it become fashionable for politicians to curse? Like, now, it's like oh, to prove our authenticity, you gotta curse. You know why politicians didn't curse? It's not like, you know, previous presidents didn't curse. It's that they said that in public they wanted to represent the best, that they wanted to appeal to the highest aspirations. So they weren't going to go and talk in public like they would talk at a sports bar. And there was something to that. And I believe that that still should be the Democratic vision to appeal to something better in America. And only by doing that, this is, I think, the Democratic magic, that we can bring together labor and community organizers and business and technologists and actually provide real solutions. And I, I guess that's who I am as, as a person. So for me, that is authentic. But I think that's also true of a lot of us in the Democratic Party. And we shouldn't force ourselves to be doing things that are mimicking in style the Republicans.

[Jon Lovett]

The path back to power for Democrats doesn't just involve winning some combination of the seven swing states that Kamala Harris lost. It also involves winning 51 Senate seats. We currently have 47. If you look at 2026, a majority would require flipping Maine, which is doable. But then you need North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Alaska to get to 51. Wow, 2028, just as bad. You need Wisconsin, North Carolina, Alaska, the only real pickup opportunities. I wonder, like, what kind of Democratic candidate do you think could win in states like those, knowing that Sherrod Brown, one of the most successful, respected progressive economic populists the Senate has ever had, just lost his seat?

[Kamala Harris]

Sherrod was. Other than losing the presidency, I was, I mean, saddest with Sherrod losing, too. And what the crypto packs. I mean, we had arguments with them because I've been relatively supportive of bitcoin and crypto, but what they did in that state was awful. $40 million of spending. And I do think that that made the difference. You know, we had great candidates with Alyssa Slotkin and Tammy Bola and Ruben Gallego. I don't think there's one magic formula, but I think what they would tell you is they really went into the communities, they listened, they showed up, they built trust, they built a connection in those communities. And we need to, to do that in a, in a 50 state strategy for the DNC. But I think that our best bet is economic. It's to say in Ohio, okay, look, your jobs have kept going offshore. There's no manufacturing in many of these places. Wages haven't gone up. You don't have health care. We have what I would say is a new economic deal, a real economic revitalization vision that is actually going to give economic opportunity to your kids. And this is you've tried the rest. Here's our real solution and that that to me is our best bet going forward with candidates are going to be grounded in their communities.

[Jon Lovett]

You mentioned 50 state strategy for for DNC. Do you have a favorite candidate for DNC chair yet?

[Kamala Harris]

I don't. I like Ken Martin. I like Ben Wickler. There may be others that that emerge I doubt I'm going to endorse in the process. I think they should play out, but what I'd like to see is their plans on how we're going to increase registration. I mean the Republicans were out registering us in Pennsylvania and North Carolina in some of these other states, how they're going to make sure that they're discouraging super PAC money at least in Democratic primaries, not in, in a general election, but in the Democratic primaries. And how we're going to get rid of corporate money coming into the dnc because I don't think we need it. I think we can build without it.

[Jon Lovett]

Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you as always for joining Pod Save America and come back soon.

[Kamala Harris]

Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Jon Lovett]

That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Wednesday. Bye everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Reed Churlin is our executive editor and Adrienne Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt De Groat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team. Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones Phoebe Bradford Joseph Dutra, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman Molly Lobel, Kiril Pelaviev and David Toles this AI moment hits different it's the first technology designed not just to serve us, but to be us. Hey guys, I'm Baratunde Thurston and on my new video podcast, Life With Machines.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

Of folks, the people hitting the gas.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Kamala Harris]

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